Sunday, June 19, 2016

Free Condoms Cause More Student Pregnancies: Study

A new study issued by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) concludes that students at schools that provide free condoms have ten percent higher birth rates, and independent research shows that twenty percent of teens say that instruction on contraceptives encourages them to have sex.

We find clear evidence that access to condoms in schools leads to an increase in teen fertility. . . . School condom distribution programs could encourage risky sexual behaviors, promote the use of the condom over methods that better prevent pregnancy, or cause schools to shift resources away from more effective programs.-- Kasey Buckles and Daniel M. Hungerman, Notre Dame University economists

A new data analysis of in-school condom distribution programs from the 1990s has added new complexity to our understanding of teen pregnancy prevention. Most previous studies have shown that access to free contraception decreases teen birth rates, but this is the first robust study of condom-only programs. Researchers Kasey Buckles and Daniel Hungerman of the University of Notre Dame found that teen births rose 10 percent at schools that gave out free condoms to students.

. . . The authors tracked pregnancy rates before and after the condom programs were introduced in each school, and they compared these numbers to the pregnancy rates at schools that had no condom program at all and the pregnancy rates among young women aged 20 to 24 in the same areas as the school. This allowed them to control for the possibility that broader societal shifts were driving the rising pregnancy rates in the schools that offered free condoms.

. . . the theoretical effects of providing free birth control to teenagers actually are ambiguous. On the one hand, condoms can prevent pregnancy if used correctly. On the other hand, providing teenagers with free birth control might increase sexual activity, and thus have the unintended effect of increasing teen fertility.

Buckles and Hungerman propose several possible explanations for their findings. Perhaps free condoms serve as a substitute for more reliable forms of birth control, such as the pill. Or perhaps they nudge a teenager who might otherwise be on the margins of becoming sexually active into engaging in sexual activity.

Ultimately, the authors suggest that their data best fits an interesting explanation that was first presented in a 1999 paper in the American Journal of Public Health, which found that condom use actually declined as condoms became more available in schools. . . .

It’s not entirely clear if today’s teens would respond to free condoms in the same way as the ’90s-era teens of Buckles’ and Hungerman’s research. Today’s teenagers are less likely to be sexually active and have access to more reliable forms of birth control, research has found.

Buckles and Hungerman compared teen births at schools that provided students with condoms—some provided counseling on the contraceptive method and some did not—with teen girls in places without school condom programs and slightly older girls in the same location.

Leading social scientist Dr. Michael J. New told LifeSiteNews that Buckles and Hungerman’s study “breaks new ground” because there has not been as much research on the impact of condom distribution programs in high schools as there has been on the impact of oral contraceptives.

“Overall, this study adds to a substantial body of research which shows that efforts to encourage contraception use through legalization, distribution or subsidies are ineffective at best or counterproductive at worst,” continued New. “Even the Guttmacher Institute acknowledges that availability of the birth control pill in the 1960s led to higher rates of teen sexual activity. Furthermore, another Guttamcher study found simultaneous increases in contraceptive use and abortion rates in the United States, Cuba, Denmark, Netherlands, Singapore, and South Korea.”

According to Ascend — an organization formerly known as the National Abstinence Education Association — President and CEO Valerie Huber explained that the aforementioned survey her organization conducted in partnership with the Barna Group divulged that two times the number of males — compared to females — came away from condom demonstrations at schools with the message that they were expected to have sex.

“[School programs that] normalize teen sex [and imply] sexual activity is a normal part of adolescent development, [combined with] condom distribution within even the class or maybe in the school clinic [mean schools are] tacitly saying and sometimes explicitly saying, ‘Hey, as long as you use this, you don’t have to worry about any of the consequences,’” Huber insists.

The pro-family leader maintains that the misleading message that teen pregnancies and the contraction of sexually transmitted diseases will not happen to them — in addition to the fact that underdeveloped adolescent brains are incapable of making fulling rational decisions — work together to create the “perfect storm” that can devastate the lives of teens.